


Dislocation

by SergeantAtArms



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Nightmares, we look after our own
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-04-25 03:58:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14370423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SergeantAtArms/pseuds/SergeantAtArms
Summary: Sometimes Molly dreams he's... somebody else. Yasha knows how to bring him back. Nott helps.





	1. Chapter 1

Two days out of Zidash, Molly had a bad dream.

Nott was on watch, crouched on the branch of a tree overlooking the party camp when a sudden whimper caught her ear. She pulled her eyes away from the plains and looked down. Mollymauk was shifting uncomfortably on his bedroll, now and then emitting some small noise of distress.

Nott swung herself lightly to the ground and padded over. Molly’s eyes were closed, but he was kicking hard against his blanket and his face was screwed up in distress.

“Molly?”

Before Nott could get any further than that nervous whisper, a firm hand descended on her shoulder and pushed her gently aside. Yasha stepped forward, a finger on her lips to quiet Nott’s instinctive squawk, and crouched down beside Molly.

“He’s dreaming.” She whispered. “I’ll take care of it.”

“How?”

Yasha raised her finger again, and Nott obediently closed her mouth. She scooted closer, however, watching Yasha closely. Yasha sighed, and reached forward to lay a hand on Molly’s forehead.

“Shhh. Molly, it’s alright.”

Molly’s body tensed at her touch and stayed that way, taut but still. Yasha carried on talking, not varying her tone in the slightest.

“It’s alright. You’re here. You’re Molly. It’s real.”

Molly moaned quietly, slowly unstiffening under her hand. He opened his eyes halfway, still mostly asleep, and mumbled:

“Yasha?”

“Yeah.” 

Now that he was being more co-operative, Yasha slid an arm under Molly’s back and scooped him up so that his head rested on her chest. 

“I’m here.”

“Me too?”

The question sounded like it had come from a frightened child. Yasha started to stroke his hair.

“Yes. You’re here.”

Silence fell. Nott listened as Molly’s shallow, anxious breaths gradually fell into step with the steady rise and fall of Yasha’s chest. Not long afterwards, the tiefling started to snore.  
Once she was certain he was sleeping, Yasha laid Molly carefully back down on his bedroll and tucked him in.

“You still here?”

Nott shrank back. “Shouldn’t I be?”

“Nah, it’s alright.”

“Is _he_ alright?” Nott wanted to know. “You looked like you were more worried than I get when Caleb has nightmares.”

“Did I?” Yasha shrugged and sat back. “Sometimes he dreams that he’s somebody else. And sometimes it’s hard for him to wake up from that. So I try and help him out. That’s all.”

“When you say somebody else…” Nott tilted her head inquisitively. “You mean he dreams about his past? About the person he used to be?”

“I’ve never asked.”

“Oh.” Nott’s ears wilted slightly. “You circus people really don’t go in for questions, huh?”

“I really don’t.”

“Right.”

They sat in awkward silence for a while, before Yasha stood up, her sudden loom startling the little goblin.

“I’m going back to bed.” She announced. Only two steps towards her place later, she turned back.

“Hey, Nott?”

“Yes?”

“I’m usually pretty good at catching these things, but… if anything happens while I’m away-”

“You’re going somewhere?”

“No! Well, not now. Not anytime soon. But you know how things are.”

Nott frowned. “You mean how you keep vanishing in the middle of the night?”

If Yasha noticed the sarcasm, she didn’t show it. “Yeah. If that happens, and Molly has a rough night, you should know what to do.”

“I thought it wasn’t that bad?” Nott pointed out, but relented almost instantaneously. “Sorry, I’m listening. Do I have to do the… the cuddling?”

Yasha actually smiled. “Not if you don’t want to. Might freak Molly out as well, he’s not as used to you. Just… talk to him. Use his name a lot. Help him remember where he is and who he’s with, that kind of thing. He needs a little extra help coming back down to reality, you know?”

“I… guess so?” Nott scratched behind her ears, waiting for Yasha to carry on. When that didn’t happen, she asked, “Wait, that’s it? Just talk? That’s all the instructions you thought you needed to give me just in case?”

“Guess you could have worked it out for yourself, huh?” Yasha stretched until her shoulders clicked. “Maybe so. Anyway… goodnight, Nott.”

“Goodnight, Yasha.”


	2. Chapter 2

Nott had the second watch of the night, and she was _bored_. Ordinarily, camping out in a forest meant a night filled with swishy noises and mysterious crackling sounds to keep her imagination occupied for hours, but tonight had proved distressingly calm. It didn’t even have the decency to be _too_ quiet. It was all just… fine. She’d climbed three trees already, and was now squatting on a moss-crusted stump, picking semi-interesting bits of dirt from under her nails.

She had half-convinced herself that a small yellowish lump was a bit of cheese from last night when the thump of something heavy hitting the ground pulled her attention back to her surroundings. She pushed the probably-cheese back under her nail for later and went to take a look.

The night was swelteringly warm and, like a number of his fellow adventurers, Molly had elected to string a sheet between two trees as a makeshift hammock rather than sweat inside a tent. Right now though, he was lying on the ground, the sheet above him twisted into knots.

Nott skipped over, ears perked right up at the prospect of something interesting. She leaned over Molly’s groaning form with a giggle and whispered jibe.

“You owe me a gold, Tumblebum! You said circus people didn’t-”

Molly moaned and rolled over. His arm shot out and struck Nott hard in the chest, shoving her backwards. She gasped, shocked and hurt until she realised that, despite everything, Molly was still asleep.

“How did you sleep through that?” she hissed, creeping back up to the now-writhing tiefling. “No wonder you fell out if you can’t lie still!”

Molly was breathing quickly, shifting his head rapidly from side to side as though struggling to find a comfortable position on the uneven ground.

“Yeesh.” Nott hunkered down on a tree root by Molly’s head and started prodding him awake. “Are all tieflings deep sleepers, or is this another weirdo thing?”

Molly’s shuffling about increased as she poked him, his breathing becoming even more uneven until he shot awake with a gasp. Jerked halfway into a sitting position, he held his pose for several long moments, taking in air in short, frantic pants. Nott froze in tandem with him, hunched on her tree root in the taut attitude of a prey animal prepared to fly.

Molly’s head suddenly snapped left, right, and left again, and he flung himself back down to the dirt with a cry of anguish that sent a ripple around the camp, various other members of the Mighty Nein half-waking up in apprehension of some nearby danger.

“Hey, shh, shh, shhh!”

Nott slid down beside him, heart thumping. What had Yasha said? Keep talking, use his name… was there anything else? 

“Hey, Molly, it’s okay. Molly, it’s… it’s all safe and good here, Molly. Uhm… you’re Molly and that’s good. Molly? Good Molly safe Molly, please calm down Molly…”

Molly didn’t shout again, but he buried his face in his arms and started to rock back and forth in the dirt, showing no clear signs that he was listening to her. Nott was coming up empty on other options though, so she kept talking. 

When she was pretty sure she wasn’t about to be clobbered again, she put a hand on his shoulder. She had intended to rub his back in a theoretically-comforting way as she sometimes did for Caleb, but Molly tensed to a disturbing level of rigidity under her touch and she pulled away.

“Sorry, Molly. But it’s really okay. Molly, I mean. It’s just me, Molly. It’s Nott. I mean, I am Nott. Here. I mean! I am here and my name is Nott and you know me and that’s fine. Everything’s fine, Molly.”

Molly took a long time to un-tense, Nott tangling herself in her words the whole time, increasingly concerned. She wasn’t even certain he was breathing. Eventually though, he gave a quiet groan and raised his head. Facing away from Nott and into the trees, he asked:

“Where am I?”

“In the forest of Asldene,” Nott answered. “We’re on our way to Grimgolir and we camped here. In hammocks, but you fell down. I think you were squirming too much and you owe me a gold because you said they would be fine, but anyway everything’s alright and you’re okay, I think. Please?”

Molly groaned and rolled over. “Aaugh!”

“Sorry, sorry!” Nott leapt back from him, scrambling to bring her painted mask up to her face. “Please don’t freak out, this is going to get so complicated if you wake the others up!”

Molly stared at her as she babbled, then dropped his defensive stance. “Nott?”

“Yes! Are you okay?”

Molly nodded, still making an uncomfortable amount of eye contact.

“D-did you have a bad dream?”

Another nod, this one slower and less certain. Molly finally pulled his eyes away from Nott’s face and began to cast his gaze around the campsite, taking in the other sleepers. Most of them had relaxed again after the disturbance, though Caleb was still unsettled, one hand repetitively stroking Frumpkin in a subconscious effort to ease his anxious response to noises in the night.

“About your past? Yasha said you sometimes-”

Molly turned back abruptly, cutting her off with a stare that seemed more focused than before.

“Nott.”

“Uh… yes?”

“I’m so sorry.”

“What? No, it’s alright! I know I can be a bit startling.”

“No.” Molly shuffled over to her and reached out, gently guiding her mask down from her face. “I’m sorry.”

Nott didn’t know what she could say to that. Instead, she held the broken little face between her hands and tried to take the conversation back a couple of paces.

“Yasha said I should talk to you, if she wasn’t here.”

Molly frowned. “Where is Yasha?”

“I don’t know. She just… Yasha’d?”

“Oh.” Molly paused to process this then, as though looking for confirmation, said; “she does that.”

“She really does.”

Another long, uncomfortable pause.

“Thank you.”

“It’s cool. What were you dreaming about?”

Molly’s frown deepened into a scowl.

“It might be important!” Nott insisted. “If you dream about bad things from your past, maybe it would be good to work out what they are so you can, you know… face them.”

She looked at Molly’s face and hastily added, “or not! Whatever. I’m just saying, _I_ would want to know. And you seemed really upset, and I’d like to help you… not be. In the future. If you-”

“Nott.”

Molly held up a hand, waited for her to fall back into nervous silence, then rose shakily to his feet.

“I’m going to take a walk. Not far, don’t worry, just… give me some time, okay?”

Nott shrank down a little further, ears drooping. “okay.”

Molly leaned down and ruffled her hair.

“You did good,” he whispered. “I’ll be fine.”

He passed her and walked on to the far edge of their roughly delineated camp where he paused, staring silently out into the shadowy trees.

Nott watched him until it became uncomfortable to keep doing so, then set to awkwardly pacing the campsite to dispel some of her nervous energy. Occasionally she paused to watch the back of Molly’s head again, but she couldn’t get a read on him. She wasn’t certain he had told her the truth earlier, but there was nothing she could really do if he hadn’t, so she paced about and worried to herself.

Nothing much changed until it came time for her to wake Fjord for his watch. She stood a short distance away from his hammock and poked it with a long stick, just in case this proved to be a night for dreaming all round.

Fjord came to with a grunt and a few muffled swear words. One arm reached out of the hammock, pulled the stick from Nott’s hands and tossed it in the general direction of her head.

“Coulda picked something blunt,” he grumbled, swinging himself easily down to the forest floor. He scrubbed the heel of one hand against his eyes and yawned, mutilated tusks catching at the moonlight.

“Anything interesting happen yet?”

“Well…” Nott’s eyes wandered with her thoughts, and Fjord followed her gaze. Molly was leaning against a tree just outside the camp, staring steadfastly out into the darkness.

“What’s the matter with him?”

“He had a bad dream.” Nott twisted her fingers around each other as she spoke. “Yasha said he dreams about his past sometimes. I did what she told me to, and then he said he needed some time, and then…” she gestured helplessly towards Molly’s silent, staring form.

“Uh-huh.” Fjord considered the situation. “How long has he had?”

“Nearly an hour, I think.”

“Right. You wait here, Nott. I’ll go see if I can straighten him out a little.”

Fjord turned away before Nott could ask any questions of her own and walked purposefully over to stand beside Molly. Nott hugged her knees and watched as he leaned in to whisper something in the tiefling’s ear. Molly turned his head, listening, and immediately put a hand to his neck, wincing as he paid the price of holding the same position for so long.

As if that had been his cue, Fjord reached over and draped an arm around Molly’s shoulders. From the sudden shivers that ran through Molly, Nott guessed that it had taken that contact to make him realise he was cold.

Fjord kept talking. Nott strained her ears, but she couldn’t make out the words. She did try to take a couple of quiet steps towards them, but Fjord shot her a look that said very clearly: _Don’t Interfere_.

Gently, carefully, Fjord moved Molly away from the tree he had been brooding against and led him out into the forest. Molly stumbled, stopped, stared hard at his feet, then lifted his head and looked at Fjord like he’d just realised there was somebody there. Fjord met his gaze and kept talking in a low, comforting tone until Molly nodded and looked away. 

Fjord gave him a gentle nudge to get him moving, and the two of them walked a slow circuit of the campsite, Fjord keeping his arm supportively locked around Molly’s shoulders.  
As they walked, Molly began to lean into Fjord’s grip so that by the time they re-entered the little ring of hammocks he was all but being carried by the half-orc, his head lolling sleepily against Fjord’s shoulder.

“Unravel his hammock, will you?” Fjord whispered, and Nott jumped to it, untwisting the mess Molly had made of his sheet while he dreamed.

“C’mon, Molly,” said Fjord. “Up you get.”

With a little help, Molly clambered back into his hammock. He looked on the very edge of unconsciousness, barely able to keep his eyes open for more than a second at a time.  
Now that she was close, Nott could see what looked like tear-tracks on his cheeks.

“Has he been-”

Fjord gave her a warning shove. “Not now.”

“Thanks,” Molly murmured. “Both of y’.”

“No problem,” Fjord told him. “Get some sleep.”

“mhmm.” Molly lay back, then half-opened one eye again. “Fjord?”

“Yeah?”

“Too honest for y’r own g’d, you know tha’?”

Fjord smiled. “I don’t know. Lies have a way of coming back to bite you. Good night, Molly.”

“G’night F’rd.”

“You should get some rest too,” Fjord added, turning to Nott. “Not that long left ‘til dawn.”

“But how did you _do_ that?” Nott wanted to know.

Fjord shrugged. “He was about ready to go. I didn’t do anything special. Just a bit of sharing.”

Nott narrowed her eyes, irked by his refusal to give her the full gossip.

“Is it because you both have creepy dreams you won’t tell the rest of us about?”

Fjord snorted. “Not quite. But I can empathise a little, sure. We’ve got some… common ground.”

“Now you’re being cryptic on purpose.” Nott stuck her tongue out at him. “You can just say if you don’t want to tell me stuff.”

“Fine. I don’t want to tell you. Now go to sleep.”

“Meanie.” Nott feigned insult and wandered off to curl up next to Caleb. He rolled over and pulled her in close to his chest. She sighed. Maybe her questions could wait. People were generally less grumpy by daylight. She buried her face in Caleb’s coat and settled down to rest.


End file.
